


Books & Hooks

by theproseofnight



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Bookstore, Alternate Universe - Time Travel, F/F, Fluff and Feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-25
Updated: 2020-04-25
Packaged: 2021-03-02 01:21:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23842930
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theproseofnight/pseuds/theproseofnight
Summary: Clarke, a hot air balloon pilot from the future, drops into Lexa's bookstore, and her small town life in Polis isn't the same again.OR something fluffy to help get us through *waves hand wildly at 2020*this.
Relationships: Clarke Griffin/Lexa
Comments: 50
Kudos: 402





	Books & Hooks

**Author's Note:**

> From a Tumblr prompt: book store au | meet messy | “don’t tell me you spent actual money on that.”
> 
> It's been the shittiest month for me, as I'm sure for many of you, so I hope this brings you a smile reading as it did for me writing.

*******

The doorbell rings. Lexa spares a glance up—takes quick note of a head of blonde and a long blue trench coat—before returning to serve the customer in front of her.

“Welcome to Books & Hooks,” she greets the entrant without looking, fingers continuing in swift movements.

The brown paper crinkles as she folds it into neat corners, tucks and tapes, and finishes with a rainbow sticker on top. With a genuine but practised smile she slides the wrapped books over, along with the receipt, and wishes a pleasant day.

Two more customers and two more rainbow stickers, Lexa finally gets a breather after a busy morning in the bookstore-cum-café. But then remembering the new arrival, she steps around from behind the counter to make way toward where the woman is browsing.

“Hi, is there anything I can help you with?”

Her tone is friendly. The question is ordinary. Both are met with a faint but audible hitch of breath. Then, silence.

Back turned to her, the figure stiffens mid reach to the pile of Bestsellers in the centre of the table. The hand retracts cautiously then retreats into the coat’s oversize pocket out of view. A curt head shake is the answer after a long beat.

Before Lexa can follow-up, the woman turns on her heels and makes a hasty exit out of the shop.

Lexa does not catch a glimpse of her face. The last visual is of muddy soles leaving muddy footprints on hardwood floor.

Two and four days later, the same thing happens in the Fantasy and the Non-Fiction sections, respectively. The latter time, Lexa observes the woman with curious interest. Blonde hair gathered in a bun and plopped precariously atop, wrinkled blue coat that hangs down past the knee, and white sneakers stained at the toes with what appears to be soft, sticky earth. It hasn’t rained in Polis for days and the nearest dirt road or marshland is a good few hours drive away. Must be an out-of-towner, Lexa thinks.

Once more, back turned to Lexa, the woman’s face remains a mystery. But the halting and the hesitation when Lexa approaches is becoming well known.

“Are you looking for something in particular?” Lexa ventures. She stands patient, several steps back, hands clasped in front ready to be of assistance.

Books & Hooks sells novels, comics, niche magazines and miscellaneous and obscure objects. Located at the town’s western edge in a converted 1920s building, overlooking the main street through two-storey tall windows, it’s a neighbourhood favourite for cultural products and all things related to upkeeping Polis heritage. The back of the shop features a self-serve, in-house coffee bar. White baseboard trim and warm oak shelves complement exposed brickwork walls painted ash-colour. One sleepy dog with a thumping tail short of being a bookshop cliché, it’s a soothing space to curl up with a book in one of the window boxes or to stare longingly over a cuppa along the twill-covered banquette.

Most customers either idle among the variety of nooks or are in a quick rush out the door with their caffeine hit and a new purchase tucked under their arms. Lexa knows them all by name.

The stranger is neither an idler or a purchaser. Rather, Lexa notes, a searcher looking for a specific yet unspecified title.

Registering the row of printed works where they stand, she suggests, “There’s more on aviation biographies in History. Is there someone special you have in mind?”

More silence. Realising her offer might have gone unheard, Lexa takes one step forward, clearing her throat.

The woman’s head turns and Lexa is granted preview of an attractive profile. There’s a contemplative pause, her lips part to speak but at the last second she turns abruptly in the opposite direction and leaves the shop again without a word.

On the fourth visit, Lexa is determined to at least get a hello. She finds the mystery woman in the History stacks another two days later.

The white sneakers look closer to brown, a matching colour to the bottom of the blue coat as if a tumble or wrestle with the ground had occurred minutes before stepping foot inside.

Again it hasn’t rained so Lexa is unsure where all this dirt is tracked from. The sun shines brightly outside the window. Not a single hint of cloud.

Lexa’s fourth attempt at a greeting is preempted by an unexpected comment from an unexpected voice. Soft yet scratchy, like it hasn’t been in use in awhile.

“Don’t tell me you spent actual money on that.”

Lexa’s breath catches when the bluest of gazes—bluer than the coat—land upon her, head tilt in appraisal. Literary judgment notwithstanding, there’s something mesmerising about the way light filters and flickers through sky coloured eyes, pushing at their rim as though each iris is the moon caught between earth and sun. Something out of this world.

An invisible string tugs at Lexa, an inexorable pull.

Her reaction is seemingly shared. They regard one another, a prolonged entrancement until Lexa is drawn away from the magnetism of blue eyes when they flit down to the thick volume in hand.

 _The One Hundred: a Short History of the Future,_ is written on the spine.

A huff of annoyance is followed by an under breath scoff, “More like a short history of falsehoods,” then conclusively, ”It’s inaccurate.”

“It was a donation,” Lexa replies, the book’s origin a meagre defence of its unverifiable truthfulness.

“It’s crap.”

Nose-upturning, the hardcover is pushed into her hand in disdain.

Having not read it, Lexa can’t quite argue against the review or dismissal. The illustrated book had been part of a free exchange program with the local schoolchildren. Flipping through, there are sketches of prototype machines and time travel contraptions, all dated and detailed with exacting specifications and elaborate schemas and narratives. It’s almost encyclopaedic in breadth.

On a random page in the middle of the book is a watercolour drawing of a pilot standing proudly next to a giant motor-powered air balloon. Lexa’s breath catches for a second time when she recognises yellow hair, blue coat, and white sneakers.

Underneath, at the bottom of the portrait over the sand dune, in small script reads, _Captain Clarke Griffin. Aeronaut, Sky Squadron CVII._

Save for a pair of goggles dangling from the captain’s neckline, she looks the spitting image of Lexa’s itinerant visitor.

But it’s the date on the second line of the caption that is the most shocking.

 _2175_.

Lexa looks up from her perusal, mouth agape in disbelief and several questions on the tip of her tongue—only to find the shop empty. She is alone.

Rather than the customary two, another four days pass before the familiar trench coat returns. She enters quietly while Lexa is busy at the till ringing up purchases, slipping in as someone else is leaving. Her discrete entrance on a bustling day of retail, the annual sale, would have gone unnoticed had Lexa’s ears not been keenly attuned to the sound of the swoosh of her coat.

Unfortunately, sneaky peeks of blonde among the stacks are all that’s afforded between transactions, delaying a chance to confirm her presence until much later.

When the shop at last empties, Lexa is relieved to see ‘Clarke’ has yet to make her usual swift escape, instead seated in the children’s storytelling area, fitted snuggly in one of the plush toddler chairs. The blue coat is set aside on top of a nearby low shelf, a hopeful sign she intends to stay longer than one sentence utterances.

Making a decision, Lexa scampers to the back and returns with a French press, two mugs and a tray of goodies.

She stops short of where Clarke is reading Le Petit Prince, eyebrows knitted in adorable confusion. The irony of the (presumed) pilot engrossed in a story in which the narrator is a stranded pilot visited by a faraway traveller with golden curls, seems to be lost in the bite of a bottom lip. Her feet are off the ground and folded under in a cross-legged position, chin dipped down, face in full concentration—the sight is endearing.

On a nervous breath, Lexa tries, “Clarke?”

She lets out the held-in air when Clarke looks up, corroborating the correct name usage.

“Yes?”

The same breath-stealing blues stall Lexa’s immediate reply. The same magnetic pull keeps their gazes locked.

Awkwardly, Lexa shifts on her feet, raising the press in gesture. “Coffee?”

A brilliant smile breaks their staring contest, pulling up Lexa’s own. “God, yes, please. You still have that here.”

Lexa gingerly sets everything down on the limited space of the kids table, not paying attention to the odd remark. She takes a seat in the empty chair opposite Clarke and proceeds to pour them each a steaming mug.

“Shoot,” Lexa curses, realising she forgot the milk and sugar. “I’ll be right back.”

Lexa waits for acknowledgement wanting to ensure Clarke doesn’t disappear while she’s momentarily gone. The concern is unnecessary as Clarke is engrossed again in the book, eyes darting with focused intent across the page as if memorising its content.

With extra milk and three sugars, Lexa discovers after her retrieval that Clarke has a very sweet tooth. The doughnuts she had been saving for later are consumed in large bites not soon after they are offered.

The appreciative grin caked in chocolate and sugar powder has Lexa wondering about Clarke’s last proper meal.

“You’re not from here, are you?”

Clarke wipes her mouth with the back of her hand. Eyes Lexa, looking thoughtful. She stirs her coffee, takes a careful sip much slower than the speed of her doughnut inhalation, then answers over the rim of the mug.

“Not exactly.”

It’s left at that so Lexa doesn’t push. Changing tact, she asks,

“How do you get here?”

The out of town buses only run once every fortnight in the shoulder seasons and Lexa hasn’t seen any unfamiliar vehicles parked on her street lately. Where Polis is located, off the beaten track, tourists rarely appear outside of the height of summer, limited by public transport options. The chilly Fall sees infrequent visitors. Let alone time travellers. Do people from the future even take buses?

“I walk,” Clarke answers casually.

“From where?”

“The sea.”

Lexa tries not to let her eyes bulge too wildly. The sea is a good day’s trek on foot from the edge of town, at minimum and without rest. Over the hill, through the woods, and past the pastures, it’s not exactly a walk in the park.

Casting a glance at Clarke’s socked feet then to the pair of worn shoes, the varying discoloured states of her sneakers suddenly make sense.

The info however has to be parked for later reexamination because it turns out Clarke is anything but a mute as their first encounters would’ve had Lexa believe. Clarke is _talkative_. Inquisitive. Question after question, comment after comment, her sentences run on as steadily as the refill of their coffee. Hands always moving as she speaks animatedly. Her laugh, rich and lovable.

Lexa has no idea what Clarke is actually talking about nor does she know what to make of the thumping in her chest whenever Clarke leans forward, face getting progressively closer. Her attention lies squarely on the narrowing distance between them and Clarke’s safety. Lexa fears she might tip out of her chair to crash land on the floor carpet of alphabet letters.

The afternoon is surreal. Lexa loses track of time and is thankful for the rest of the day’s light customer traffic. If it _was_ heavy, she wouldn’t have noticed anyway.

It’s well past closing hour by the time Clarke circles back to the classic children’s book, asking, “Are there more historical figures like the Little Prince?”

Lexa smiles but doesn’t bother to correct that the young boy is a fictional character, something telling her it might shatter Clarke to learn he’s not real.

“Not quite like him,” Lexa opts for diplomacy, “but yes, there are others.”

“And you know where to find them?”

Presumably, if they exist in a book in Lexa’s bookstore, then it shouldn’t be a problem. She nods.

“From any period?”

Lexa nods again, a little slower.

Clarke appears pleased with the confirmation. She dusts her hands of doughnut powder and sits up straight, looking poised to say something momentous. What comes out of her mouth is surprising.

“Why is it called Books & Hooks?”

Lexa had expected Clarke to finally broach the time travel topic, not be curious about something so mundane as the shop’s name. Despite the banality, Clarke stares at her like hope hangs on her response.

“Actually, this used to be known as just Hooks. It was a pit stop for fishermen passing through on their way to the sea. It sold everything from breakfast to bait. After a new diner opened up down the road and the cod industry dried up because of overfishing, Hooks struggled to maintain its clientele. It went through several ownership changes before I bought it.”

Clarke lights up like a Christmas tree, consequently, prompting Lexa to disappear to the back of the store at the end of that sentence.

“All of that to say,” she continues, dropping a large box in front of Clarke after re-emerging, “I never got rid of the original equipment that was leftover from the shop’s heyday. There’s more in the back. For some reason, I felt like hanging onto them. Seemed fitting to keep the name too.”

Rods and reels, nets and hooks, lures and tackles and fishing gear of all sorts take up room next to books and back catalogues in the rear storage.

Clarke’s face brightens impossibly more as if Lexa’s hoarding had unknowingly answered all of the universe’s questions for her. Without warning, Clarke is out of her seat and ploughing into Lexa. The force of her excitement knocks them over, rocking Lexa’s chair backward. Her arms instinctually swing out to grab onto Clarke and shield her from impact while breaking their fall.

Clarke embraces her in a tight, grateful hug. Only after Lexa pats her gently on the back does she lift herself off, looking breathless and beautiful, but most of all, extremely happy, apparently buoyed by the news.

“Can I ask for a favour, Lexa?”

Lexa nods, dumbfounded. Accepting the outstretched hand, she sits up.

“I need your help,” Clarke says, eyes swimming with that hope again but also strangely with trepidation this time, like Lexa might not be too eager to accommodate. “To get home.”

“Yeah, sure,” Lexa is quick to agree, not seeing a reason to object, especially if she can save Clarke a day’s walk. She hooks a thumb over her shoulder, referring to her car sitting idle in the garage in the alley. “I can give you a lift.”

Clarke chuckles and shakes her head in amusement. “Thanks but I doubt you can take me as far as I need to go.” Her eyes twinkle with mirth. “No, I have my own ride. The problem is it’s stuck. Broken.” She looks meaningfully at the miscellaneous items spread behind them. “But you might be able to help me fix it.”

Lexa racks her brain. She _might_ have a wrench lying about somewhere at the bottom of one of these boxes but doubts it would be sufficient. Admittedly more comfortable with T.S Elliot than tools, it’s uncertain in what way she would be of use.

“I’ll do what I can.”

“Great!” Clarke beams. She leans forward, conspiratorial, whispering even though there’s no one else around. “What do you know about rocket air balloons?”

It dawns on Lexa in bed later that night that she never formally introduced herself to Clarke. Yet, her name had rolled off of Clarke’s tongue as if it happens with regularity.

That thought occupies her mind as she stares bewildered at a crinkled piece of aged paper that had fallen out of Clarke’s pocket when Lexa went to pick up her forgotten coat after she left. It’s a torn page, one edge jagged as though ripped from the spine of a book. On it is a vintage photograph of a young girl in knee high waders wearing a crooked smile. Dangling in one hand is a prized codfish proudly held up for inspection; in the other hand is a fishing rod stood vertical. Behind her is a storefront fetted in banners and streamers with blue lettering overhead.

 _Hooks_.

The girl has brown hair and green eyes. Like looking in a retro mirror. Identical down to the knick in her lip.

Lexa falls asleep accepting that some things— _talkative, attractive pilots with a sweet tooth and a broken hot air balloon far from home and a long way from the present_ —are inexplicable; while other things— _a younger version of herself at Hooks’ grand opening from a hundred years ago_ —are damn near impossible.

—

After that day Clarke takes up residence in the kids reading corner poring over every book on rockets and air balloons Lexa could source and order, the few in her shop deemed too rudimentary and, by Clarke’s disgruntled estimation, “old technology” to be helpful. It turns out, the help Clarke needs from Lexa is how to use an _abacus_ like the Internet to find hidden literature on machines that have yet to be invented.

A pattern begins.

At two day intervals, Clarke comes in her blue coat and white sneakers, sometimes muddy, sometimes not. Lexa has her overly-sweet coffee and a plate of fresh treats ready and waiting. Between serving customers and stacking or counting inventory, she assists in note-taking and cross-referencing while Clarke sketches diagrams piecing together their findings.

The drawings often draw a crowd of eager early year readers, many clamouring to see various mashups of fantastical balloons and jet-fuelled aircrafts. Lexa is likewise fascinated by the mechanical imaginaries, though increasingly, her admiration is directed at the artist and not exclusively the art.

They build a rapport over coffee stains and cream-filled doughnuts, a growing friendship in bursts of Clarke’s excitable chatter after stumbling on a potential lead. She’s cheerful and affable, an engaging conversationalist and adept storyteller able to hold Lexa’s attention for long periods. In a number of instances, Lexa forgets she has a shop to run—immersed ever so in Clarke’s graphite worlds or invested in her words—until someone taps on her shoulder with a book to buy.

The interest isn’t one sided. The reverse is inordinately true, Clarke’s curiosity boundless of both Lexa and her surroundings.

Occasionally, Lexa catches Clarke stealing glances her way before whipping attention back to her books, cheeks rosy pink after being discovered. Frequently, she fields questions about how things work _here_ , the Internet, smartphones, the microwave. Each explanation is met with open wonder and a marvel of “quaint,” leaving Lexa to speculate how far telecommunications and food reheating has advanced.

Lexa knows enough ‘new media’ to get by and keep her shop administratively afloat but is far from claiming expertise. Her basic knowledge of search engines, however, has Clarke grossly fascinated.

It also has Clarke sitting extremely closely to look over her shoulder while Lexa types in a query and millions of results pop up. The cash register space is small by normal standards for one person. Fitting in two warm bodies means Lexa is hugging one end of the counter and Clarke is brushing up against her side, not conscious of or not caring in the least about the heat emanating from Lexa’s fried nerves.

She smells like sea salt and late summer breeze. Like a day spent in the sun counting grains of sand while watching the flights of swallows overhead. She smells like an old memory. Each time Clarke reaches across to swipe at the unswipeable screen, her scent intensifies under Lexa’s nose.

“Hmm, cute,” Clarke remarks when Lexa clicks on the Images tab, breaking her out of the intoxicating fog. Such quips colour their interactions, although Clarke never qualifies why she finds present-day tech endearing.

There are no mentions of the future nor the past, Clarke solely preoccupied with the here and now. When Lexa had returned her photograph the next time they met, she received a simple thanks and a smile. Clarke didn’t address the elephant. They don’t talk about it.

Holding back from asking the many questions Lexa has, she takes Clarke’s existence at face value, enjoying her company that’s now a fixture in the shop as much as the framed pictures of Polis woodlands.

Together, they make steady progress toward an end goal that is not entirely clear to Lexa. Sometimes Clarke would leave the store with a partial sketch and a random item from one of the boxes and return the following day with smudges on her face and an altogether different, unidentified piece of equipment. She would hold it up for scrutiny against the more and more elaborate drawings, make some redlines, grumble some things, and then the whole process would restart; riffling for other fishing gear, leaving to try it out, and returning as dissatisfied or as discouraged as the two days prior.

One-tool trip seems an awfully inefficient way to do repairs. Repeated offers of a ride have been repeatedly, politely declined in an apparent and inherent mistrust of automotive vehicles, Clarke’s nose never failing to crinkle at the suggestion. A soft, under-breath utter of _climate change_ had been the closest Lexa got to an explanation.

It occurs to Lexa mid-month when Clarke arrives looking haggard, bags under her eyes and sneakers sullied, that the constant travelling back and forth between sea and shop must be taking its toll.

“Stay the night.”

“What?” Clarke asks, rubbing her eyes.

Lexa looks out the window to where the sun has crested below the horizon. The darkening sky and overhanging clouds threatening worrying walking conditions.

Lately, each time Clarke walks out of her shop to retire to the sea, she finds growing reluctance to watch her go. A loaned flashlight and umbrella had abated early concern for Clarke’s safety and dryness undertaking pitch-black return journeys, but they do little now to quell the stirred-up butterflies at her departure, perilous and uncertain paths notwithstanding.

Clarke seems to catch on, face softening. “Lex, I’ll be fine. I can make the trip in my sleep.”

The shortened name causes Lexa’s stomach to pleasantly swoop. Nonetheless, with the forecast predicting an overnight storm, her chest tightens picturing Clarke alone against the elements. Her trench coat may finally come in handy but is paltry protection against the hail and torrential rain in store.

A well-timed crackle of thunder works to her advantage as she presses. “Please, it’ll make me feel better.”

Lexa reaches out to hold Clarke’s hand, linking their fingers and rubbing her thumb over the back knuckles. The brave touch, more than the pleading in her eyes, appeal to Clarke’s loosening resolve.

“Maybe you’re right,” Clarke deliberates, teeth gnawing in thought. “It’ll save me time in the morning.”

Lexa eagerly nods, supportive of the trumped-up reasoning. She guides Clarke to the attic quarters, a loft that doubles as Lexa’s home as well as storage room for inventory overflow.

The bed is made in short order, Lexa refitting the mattress with fresh sheets while Clarke stalls by the door raking in the books that are everywhere, stacked in short and tall piles across the open plan space. The personal collection culminates at a modest writing desk which is where Clarke’s gaze fixates.

“You write,” Clarke says. It sounds rather like a statement than a question.

“I dabble sometimes.”

Clarke nods, though the confirmation doesn’t seem to come as news to her. Something of affection passes on her face.

“Bathroom is just around the corner,” Lexa dithers, pointing in the direction past the linen closet, “and there’s more throws and pillows if you need. Oh and ...”

Lexa hurries to the dresser and grabs a few items that she places in Clarke’s arms.

“... if you want to get into something more comfortable.”

Lexa has never gone more red more quickly when Clarke disrobes on the spot, pulling her shirt off and pants down without thought to her audience. Lexa spins around as fast as she can but not soon enough to miss the glimpse of pale skin and a soft tummy, the visual making hers flutter.

Flushed with embarrassment, she refocuses to finish the bedmaking, giving Clarke a semblance of privacy and a chance for the somersaulting in her stomach to settle.

After fluffing the pillows, a last delaying tactic before biding good night, Lexa’s intention to take leave is derailed when Clarke climbs into bed and fixes her with a questioning but expectant look, eyebrows furrowed.

“Are you not staying too?”

Lexa’s immediate thought is to say no, planning to crash on the downstairs sofa. But then Clarke is looking at her so softly, the corner of the duvet cover pulled back in invitation, she aches to not disappoint. Coupled with the instinct to keep Clarke safe, it’s another obvious marker they are getting close.

It should be surprising Clarke has no hesitation breaching such a level of intimacy. Yet, it’s one more thing of the strangeness tied to her arrival that Lexa does not contest. Ever since a blue coat and white sneakers appeared, her understanding of normal and real has gone through significant adjustments. Without rhyme or reason, Lexa gravitates to her.

Yielding to Clarke is reflexive at this point, she should have known the answer was never going to be anything but yes.

It’s a done deal when Clarke adds, tongue firmly in cheek, “Please, it’ll make me feel better.”

This is how Lexa finds herself lying stiff as a board next to a pilot from the future who has no concept of personal space and snores like there is no tomorrow. An arm is slung around her midsection, familiar and warm and habitual of a regular occurrence but that does nothing to calm an irregular heartbeat and let Lexa get some shut eye.

Eventually she does fall asleep. The storm however does not let up the next night. Clarke stays again.

A second pattern begins.

On the third night, they huddle around Lexa’s laptop in bed watching her favourite movie, _Back to the Future_ , which introduces Clarke to Marty McFly and Doc.

Clarke is enraptured by their adventures, clutching Lexa’s pillow to her chest, knees pulled up, eyes big and bright. Completely absorbed in the plot. Her aversion to cars doesn’t extend to cinema because when she sets sight on the DeLorean, there’s an audible gasp. She’s glued to the screen whenever it appears, suggesting by her preoccupation that flying vehicles hasn’t come to fruition.

Lexa lets slide her odd mutterings of, “Not true,” in response to the movie’s general science fiction, soaking up instead her delighted laughter, how it spills carefree.

“You would look good in an orange buffer vest,” Clarke spares a second to say without looking, along with other random comparisons of Lexa to Marty when the protagonist does or says something particularly striking. Lexa keeps quiet about the aviator sunglasses in her bedside drawer that are a legacy of her teenage dreams to be as cool as the seventeen year old.

“I wanted to be Marty,” Lexa shares during a lull in action. “He was the reason I took up skateboarding as a kid. Ten year old me thought if I could go really fast, I’d reach my destiny sooner.”

The tidbit of information lights Clarke up. She laughs, eyes twinkling, peering at Lexa with a fondness that’s more adoration than warranted by a childhood bending of fate and physics.

Instead of a follow-up on hovercraft technology, its existence or efficiency, Clarke shifts closer and drapes the fallen blanket they’ve been sharing to fit snuggly over Lexa’s lap. Lexa squeezes her hand in thanks. On Clarke’s affectionate smile, heads turn back to the screen, Lexa ignoring the bloom of her cheeks. Without a word, Clarke intertwines their fingers and doesn’t let go of her hand for the rest of the viewing. Lexa also ignores the skipped heartbeat caused by the thumb tracing the back of her hand.

Hand in hand, hip to hip, and shoulder to shoulder, the balance of the trilogy, which Clarke begged to finish after learning there are two more in the series, is consumed in contented warmth and bracketed by Clarke’s enthusiastic cheering of the hero against the bullies.

Her favourite movie graduates to an all-time favourite with the way Clarke intermittently looks at her as if imagining them as pilot and co-pilot in the DeLorean; the way she bites her lip during action-heavy scenes; the way she tightens their laced fingers during the emotional ones; and the way her head falls on Lexa’s shoulder, in a natural position as though the hard surface is a habitually sought-after soft pillow, losing the battle to sleep in the last crucial minutes of the third film.

Over the following days, Clarke and movies become a staple of Lexa’s evenings. Actually, Clarke and morning coffee, Clarke and afternoon sketching, Clarke and bed sharing become a recurrent staple of Lexa’s life. The storm passes but the parting clouds don’t take Clarke with them. She continues to stay.

The research work continues as before but instead of a two-day absence, Clarke becomes a constant, a consistent view within Lexa’s line of sight.

They don’t talk about Lexa’s gradual gain of an aeronaut as a house guest. The new reality is as easily accepted as seeing Clarke in Lexa’s borrowed clothes and waking up to blue eyes softly studying her. As with everything else, Lexa ignores the butterflies in her stomach.

The elephant grows larger. Clarke’s origin and destination and length of stay remain as unaddressed as their growing attachment and Lexa’s growing feelings. She slips into the cracks of daily living—which until her appearance had been pleasant enough for Lexa but was admittedly sometimes lonely—and fills them up as though they had never been empty.

Things big and small change as Clarke permeates every crevice of her day to day. The coffee bar is hijacked for domestic experiments, Clarke repurposing the espresso machine into a waffle maker. The regular customers are upset at first but then quickly charmed by the new self-appointed barista into enjoying delicious waffles and drip coffee as alternatives to their usual pick-me-up.

The same turnaround occurs with the neighbours who are initially disgruntled by Clarke’s early morning banging until she starts putting up signs on the storefront and at the coffee bar, _50% neighbour and friends discount_ , without consulting Lexa. Patronage in the shop skyrockets with Clarke’s circle of friends widening to a beyond-neighbourhood radius that may put Lexa out of business.

Her popularity extends to the Polis network of small businesses. The local suppliers who stock the shop’s pantry and Lexa’s personal fridge, from the baker to the bean roaster to the fruit grocer, spend longer time _delivering_ than necessary. They enter the shop with a smile—eager to hear gossip from Clarke about the guy that came in before them—and leave with a bigger one plastered on their face as they breeze by Lexa with a chirpy greeting on the way out. The baker unsurprisingly gets held up longer than others but it’s Lincoln the florist who takes an immediate liking to Clarke, in no time becoming her favourite because of his gentleness. Wednesday mornings are marked by their hushed plotting as she gives him advice on his crush on the butcher, Octavia.

Her indefatigable spirit and good-natured humour is a hit with all. Everyone assumes Clarke is Lexa’s new hire, someone to share the workload and add a spot of happiness to their everyday. Lexa doesn’t correct them.

Clarke fits into this corner of small town life in a way that no one thinks twice about, moving in and out of daily routines with the comfort of someone born and raised here.

More seamless is the way she interacts with Lexa; how she anticipates Lexa’s moods, how she’s innately aware of Lexa’s proximity and nearby movements, and how she stares intently at Lexa’s lips when she thinks Lexa isn’t paying attention. Sometimes Clarke seems to forget herself, nearly going through with her intention but then turning at the last second for Lexa’s cheek or elsewhere that is safely not Lexa’s lips.

The near _misses_ happen a lot.

It happens whether they are sitting quietly reading and drawing together, Lexa looking up to find Clarke staring and then brushing off her confused look with a cheek kiss; or if they are standing side by side doing the dishes, Lexa washing and Clarke drying, to feel a concealed smile on her shoulder when Lexa tells a hilarious joke Clarke insists isn’t hilarious but her softly spread lips say otherwise.

It happens every time Clarke hides behind her when Lexa is working the toaster, cowering because of an unreasonable fear of the small appliance which makes her jump without fail when the bread jumps up. Lexa would laugh and Clarke would scowl, complaining about the antique not coming with a warning for when a projectile would eject from its metal teeth. Clarke buries her head into Lexa’s neck and Lexa swears she can feel warmth pressed against her skin within a millisecond of the toaster popping, like Clarke is soothing herself by a known comfort.

It definitely happens during their two-person dance parties that have become after-dinner nightly lessons following a viewing of Dirty Dancing, the film a continuing part of Clarke’s cultural catch-up on Lexa’s favourites. ‘Dance’ is a loose term. Down the shop’s music aisle, cleared for take off, Clarke makes them practise the famous lift, running at Lexa at an alarming speed from one end before vaulting into her supposed-to-be waiting arms at the other end. Things predictably fall away to giggles, sides hurt in laughter at their poor re-enactments as much as bruises form from repeated collision.

As inconsistent a success rate Lexa has catching Clarke, Lexa is irrevocably falling for her too. Her heart thumping in time, not to the music, but the girl on top of her who’s smiling with unabashed glee at their latest failed attempt.

But as soon as their laughs subside, Lexa faces a curtain of blonde hair, a pair of penetrating blues, and the tip of a pink tongue moistening dry lips. A different sort of dance happens, coruscating from eyes to mouth and back and forth until ultimately, irresolutely, Clarke seeks out the corner of her mouth—the closest she comes to overstepping an undeclared boundary.

The strength it takes not to pull Clarke in that last millimetre of separation leaves Lexa panting as always, a matched rhythm to the stuttering rise and fall of Clarke’s chest she can keenly feel. Eventually, Clarke pushes herself off, cheeks as flushed as the heat in Lexa’s lower belly.

This push and pull is as standard as the countless longing looks Clarke gives her, like she’s waited years to kiss Lexa. Lexa is certain that if or when their mouths do make contact it wouldn’t be for the first time.

By some tacit agreement, they have not spoken about _whatever_ it is that’s been happening with furtive looks and fond smiles, sparing touches and almost kisses. Clarke in many ways is an open book with her affection but a closed one about the well from which it springs. Except, from the way her eyes always track for Lexa’s across a room, the source of it is clear.

It’s over dinner prep one day that Lexa voices her theory, which may explain why Clarke intimately knows Lexa’s food and drink preferences without asking—and more significantly, why she never crosses that invisible line.

“Did you know lady fingers are a vegetable AND ladyfingers—one word—is a biscuit?” Clarke informs as she crunches on the sugary variety, enjoying dessert before the main meal, which consists of the nutritious variety in a garam masala curry with scented rice. Lexa smiles at the weird combination and reversal of courses—Clarke’s interpretation of a balanced diet.

“Really?” She plays along as if it’s new information, passing on the biscuit when Clarke waves a sponge cake finger at her in offer. At Lexa’s decline, Clarke soaks it in a coffee mix then adds to the layer of her building tiramisu cake. The baking section of the bookshop has seen heavy rotation lately.

“Uh-huh. It’s also called okra, gumbo, bhindi,” Clarkes lists off distractedly while taking stock of her rising tower that is one layer too many several layers ago. “You used to think they were slimy and gross until I grilled them with paprika and chilli.”

Her off-hand nostalgia, one of many inadvertent giveaways Clarke doesn’t notice, reminds Lexa of the improbability of their shared history considering they only met two months ago.

“Clarke?”

“Hmm, love,” Clarke answers on autopilot without looking up, still busy assessing the tiramisu’s structural integrity.

Lexa takes a deep breath.

“Do we know each other?”

Clarke stills, catching up to her slip. She finishes the final top layer, satisfied it won’t topple, dusting it with cocoa, before turning to give Lexa her full attention.

“From where— _when_ —you’re from?” Lexa adds, nervously playing with the spillover cocoa, drawing mindless patterns on the counter while holding Clarke’s gaze.

“Yes,” is the soft reply after a long stretch of silence. Her eyes crinkle gentle resignation that the answer is too obvious to deny.

Clarke looks at her, stands patient, knowing there is another question—the real one—that Lexa is working up to ask. The bigger one that has been tickling at the back of her mind in recent weeks and has decidedly moved up the queue in the past days with how her heart responds every time they are in the same room. Clarke’s familiarity with Lexa, her conversance of major and minor details, intuits a much, _much_ stronger connection than mere acquaintance. Deep and aching, a persistent, unexplainable tugging.

“Are we together?”

“Yes.” The gentle smile is contradicted by golden eyebrows then knitting together as a faraway look sobers her reply. “But not in the way you think.”

Lexa blinks. Then gulps.

She had hoped the answer would settle her heart but it only brings up more questions. _In what way then? How long have we been together? How did we meet? Are we in love? Does it feel a little (a lot) like this?_

They aren’t given voice. Realisation dawns.

Lexa is perhaps not as ready to hear the truth aloud as she thought. Having her suspicion bear out suddenly feels like a blow, like whatever she and Clarke have been dancing around, has to stop.

She doesn’t known much about time travel but calculates Clarke’s reticence about mixing the present with the future is for good reason.

The rest of the evening is quieter than usual, Lexa processing the confirmation and Clarke sending her concerned looks. Dinner is a muted affair and especially hard to stomach when tiramisu cream falls on Clarke’s chin; where her normally messy eating habits had previously provided an excuse for Lexa to lean in and wipe it away while Clarke laughed off her embarrassment, it now stings to see the thin abstract line they’ve been straddling between friendship and more, for what it truly is, very thick and very _real_.

Discussion about lady fingers and their etymology and linguistic permutations loses its pre-supper momentum. Clarke gives up trying wasted breath on numerous subject changes when they only produce thin smiles.

While Lexa has grown to adore hearing Clarke’s tales, many she suspects aren’t merely fictional accounts, it hurts to recognise the true role she plays—to be a footnote in someone else’s love story.

Later that night in bed, each hugging their respective edges, the thread is revisited when Lexa asks, needing a small consolation to temper the pain.

“Are we happy?”

Clarke turns on her side. Lexa mirrors her action, the motion bringing them closer together. They regard each other for an infinite while. Clarke reaches up to trace her features, a gentle stroke of fingers before she cups Lexa’s face, thumb brushing over her cheek.

“Incredibly,” she whispers.

The stroking moves into her hair, fingers curling and uncurling in a soothing pattern. The most intimate kind. Lexa fights the urge to do the same to soft golden waves.

Her eyes flutter shut, she sinks into the tenderness, a balm for the dull ache of the last hours. When they open again, Clarke is closer than before, her gaze fleeting between Lexa’s eyes and mouth. The air tenses, prickling with anticipation. Lexa licks her lips, a motion that is very much noticed. A breath apart, she can almost taste the kiss.

On a feather of restraint, Lexa closes her eyes again, unsure if she wants their lips to meet or not. She can feel Clarke’s warmth, the hand that’s solid in her hair, massaging into her scalp, the shift of air as she pulls Lexa in closer by the back of her head.

Weeks of built up tension is one touch away from breaking. One touch away from erasing timelines and things uncrossable. One touch from bridging a practically non-existent gap.

Just one kiss.

But then Clarke scoots back, putting a safe and sorry distance between them.

Blinking out of her daze at the sudden cool air, Lexa re-locks their gazes. Her confusion must read plainly.

“I need to get home to her,” Clarke says apologetic, a conflict of resolve and regret in her eyes. “I’m sorry. It’s been so long that I forget you’re not her.” The unexpected confession stings. Head down, Clarke misses the flash of hurt. When she speaks again, it sounds as forlorn as Lexa feels, “I miss my Lexa.”

Lexa is not a jealous person. But in the moment, and with the way her heart is thundering at the same time that her stomach is dropping, she has never been more envious—jealous—of herself.

She nods in quiet understanding and turns to lie on her back. Hands fold at her stomach, Lexa stares blankly up at the ceiling. Then exhales heavily. Breath shaky, eyes watery.

“Lexa, I didn’t mean—”

“Good night, Clarke.”

Lexa turns on her side, away from Clarke this time, hiding the tears in her pillow.

—

When she wakes the next morning, it’s to Clarke pressed into Lexa’s front, Lexa’s arm possessive around her stomach, and their bodies bent and fitted and entangled together. Snuggled as had become habit. Clarke’s hand is under her shirt, in a spot above her ribs and below her breast that seems to be a favoured place.

The placement reminds Lexa of the contracted state of her chest, how smaller it feels in the aftermath of what she learned last night. Her heart beats differently today—a little slower, a bit more halting—knowing what’s in her arms is not hers to have.

Sighing, Lexa presses a _platonic_ kiss to the top of Clarke’s head before tactically undoing their pretzel shape and leaving for the bathroom.

While brushing her teeth, she allows sadness and dejection and all manner of disappointment to settle in. It’s a gut punch for Lexa to fall for someone who is the definition of emotionally unattainable—who’s already in love with her, but not her _her_. Lexa isn’t a stranger to unrequited love but this certainly is taking things too far.

By the time the toothpaste is spat out, however, she recommits to getting Clarke home. Notwithstanding romantic misfortunes, and at the expense of her present self, she can’t in good conscience deny future Lexa her rightful happiness with this Clarke.

The floor is spread full of Clarke’s drawings and Lexa’s books when Clarke joins her downstairs. The shop is closed today and tomorrow for the long weekend so they have the luxury of time to tackle the project with renewed focus. Aided by a gallon of coffee, Lexa pours her energy into the task, a blessed distraction while her head and heart rearrange their rhythms and regain independence from their temporary tie to an impermanent roommate.

They work in companionable silence. Clarke smiles in gratitude whenever their eyes meet, though underneath Lexa reads a shared melancholy.

Clarke is tender with her words, the gentleness of handling a wounded animal, even as she looks hurt by Lexa’s distancing, recognising the needed reintroduction of boundaries. By wordless offer, she sleeps on the sofa that night. Lexa doesn’t fight it.

Alone for the first time in her bed in weeks, her chest feels newly as empty as the left side that she now associates with Clarke. Two layers of blanket can’t ward off the foreign chill. The mention of another her, somewhere out there waiting for Clarke, throws cold water on the warmth they’ve been building. Tossing and turning until the sun rises, Lexa realises it’s a form of heartbreak that can’t be papered over with a change in their sleep arrangement.

“I think I got it!” Clarke exclaims when Lexa reappears in the morning. Bleary-eyed, the pilot doesn’t look like she’s gotten a wink of sleep either. The couch blankets remain folded neatly, unused.

They stare at Clarke’s patch of drawings, stitched together by painter tape. To be honest, Lexa has no clue what she’s looking at, it’s all a jumble of various machinery, a Frankenstein’s monster of metal and gears. Even so, Clarke’s smile is wide despite it not reaching her eyes per usual.

“It’s crude but I managed a replica of Arkadia.” In effect, Clarke has assembled what looks to be instructions for fixing her air balloon, or Arkadia, as Lexa learned its name, a nod to Clarke’s hometown. “If all goes well, I should be able to take off soon, if not today.”

Lexa’s eyes widen. She assumed they’d have more time. Didn’t think her departure would be this abrupt.

“That’s great, Clarke,” Lexa says, hoping it sounds genuine in spite of the ache that comes with thinking of their imminent goodbye.

“I need to go to the site,” Clarke declares, hurriedly gathering all the drawings with sudden purpose.

Unable to watch or make eye contact, Lexa fiddles with the hem of her knitted sweater, a loose yarn keeping her busy from asking something unwise like, “Will you be back?”

Her interest in the purl stitch pattern is divided at the feel of gentle fingers under her chin, lifting it. She raises her head to find Clarke looking softly at her.

“Come with me.”

The request is said so quietly, she almost misses it when Clarke curls the hand along her jaw, caressing.

Clarke probably means to where the hot air balloon is located, to part ways there; but for a brief flight of fancy, Lexa interprets it as Clarke asking for Lexa’s company on a longer journey, a farther destination. It’s hard not to fantasise about what ifs where her future self isn’t in the picture.

At Lexa’s silence which must read as hesitation, Clarke further entices, “I want to show you something.”

Although a daytrip to the sea seems incongruent with her present mood, if it can extend her time with Clarke by hours then she’s not going to waste them moping. Lexa nods.

She packs a rucksack and puts on her hiking shoes, knowing they won’t be taking her car. The walk is quiet with surprisingly few stops given the presumed length, Clarke taking shortcuts that Lexa wasn’t aware existed.

They chat here and there, voices low. A murmur of their once lively conversations. The exchanges are brief, interspersed with pining glances, couched in unsaid words and ambivalent feelings about Clarke’s impending leave. To outsiders, it would look like a leisurely stroll, a meditative ambling of two paramours rather than an eventual walking away from each other.

Silently, Clarke takes Lexa’s hand, linking their fingers. The gesture goes unstated. It gets absorbed in the crunch of gravel afoot, in the winding paths and trails. Palms warm while the open air is cool, pleasant on bare arms. At the speed of one foot in front of the other, the landscape is splendid. The sky a brilliant, blue ceiling. Lexa understands the appeal of walking, why this is Clarke’s preferred mode of transportation.

They arrive at a clearing hours after the quality of light has changed several gradients and a small amount of exhaustion has bled into Lexa’s soles. Sweaty, she wipes at her brow. The smell of a different kind of salt reaches her nose. The sea makes itself known by a welcomed breeze that carries its fragrance. From the hilltop Lexa spots an area off shore by a cluster of large rocks what looks to be fabric flapping lightly off the ground.

“Is that Arkadia?” Lexa asks, finger pointing in the direction.

Clarke hums acknowledgment, a nonverbal answer followed by a small moment of scanning the scenery. The water is clear, the waves are gentle. Most beach goers favour the south shore for its softer sandbar and directness in the sun, leaving this northern stretch void of people and activities. It’s the perfect spot to come and go unseen.

Hands still entwined, Clarke leads them down the other side of the hill, Lexa towing behind at a slower pace.

From Clarke’s fantastical drawings that are in the rucksack, Lexa had expected something ostensibly grand upon arrival. She wonders if the traditional-looking hot air balloon—typical down to the envelope, skirt and wicker basket design—is intentional for subterfuge purposes. Its ordinariness hiding advanced engineering in plain sight.

“Spotting something in flight that’s been around since the 1700s doesn’t blip on anyone’s radar,” Clarke says, seemingly keyed into Lexa’s inner thoughts.

Incognito or not, it’s apparent that its landing hadn’t been smooth. Extending out from the wicker bottom, which is sunken in sand, there are prominent burn tracks that trail along a good portion of the pebbled beach, looking like it had endured a fast and rough touchdown, an accelerated skidding before the large rocks stood in its path. Lexa now thinks that Clarke might have literally fell out of the sky.

Next to the basket is a pile of disused fishing gear, much of which has been disassembled this way and that, transformed into new tools.

Letting go of Lexa’s hand, Clarke immediately sets to work.

Lexa tries to be as helpful of an assistant as possible but mainly stands aside or sits idle next to the basket while Clarke buzzes about cranking something or another. Inside the basket are burners and propane tanks as represented on diagrams that Lexa has now memorised—supplying the hot air that gives the balloon flight. On closer inspection, what is different is an unidentifiable attachment in the centre console that she assumes is the unique upgrade which gives it unparalleled propelling power. Though how much power would be needed to cover the distance of one hundred and fifty-five years, Lexa doesn’t know.

She’s in the middle of ruminating about the wisdom of sophisticated lightyear travel manned by someone who is scared of Lexa’s toaster, when a head of blonde pops up from the wicker basket. Cheeks rosy and oil-stained, Clarke looks tired but pleased.

“All done.”

Lexa stands up straight. ”That fast?”

“Yeah, Raven’s not going to be happy about my hatchet job but I’m a pilot not a mechanic. It’ll do,” Clarke says, then rubs at the back of her neck with one hand, sticking out the other for Lexa to take. “Wanna go for a ride along the coast?”

So this is what Clarke had in mind. Lexa agrees, climbing in after Clarke fires up the balloon. Getting into the basket is more awkward and challenging than anticipated. A misstep has her toppling on top of Clarke and discovering in an unfortunate way it’s not that spacious inside.

Lexa swallows hard when Clarke sweeps mussed hair away from her face.

“Careful.”

“Thanks.”

The ride is much smoother than her entry and the view, as promised, spectacular. Majestic. Coastline and tree line recede until Polis is an indistinct speck of inhabited earth. Although not nearly as high up into the atmosphere as a plane can go, they reach a lofty enough height that the vistas are breathtaking but the air is still breathable. At one point, they lift above the clouds, afforded a sweeping bird’s eye view.

Not much is said while the landscape below rolls by. Floating 3,000 feet over the Earth is a novel experience and a whole new way of seeing. Polis from above is something else, indescribable in its breadth. Lexa leans against the wicker edge, mesmerised, mentally recording the magnificence of this aerial perspective.

 _Amid the vast solitude of the skies, unknown and unnoticed. Reviewing kingdoms, exploring territories and surveying cities._ Lexa remembers the words she read about Aeronautica, the famous balloon journey in 1836 and the phenomenon of early human flight, in a book on visual culture documenting the aerial imagination. As they glide past clouds, the sole occupants among burnt hues of oranges and reds while forest green canopies scroll below, there is something poetic about being suspended between loneliness and wilderness, looking for a kingdom or territory or city beyond her grasp.

Staring out at the horizon, Lexa ponders, would Arkadia—and the future—be reachable if a forceful enough wind pushed them to where the sky fades into the pale distance?

The sun is slowly making its descent when they make theirs. It feels like the beginning of the end. Lexa’s gaze has been outward so she doesn’t realise until she turns her head that Clarke’s gaze has been on her the whole time. Clarke stands beautiful against the dimming light. Lexa is struck not only by the sight but what touching ground will mean as she takes in Clarke’s drawn expression. A wan smile on her face, eyes wet with emotion, she looks sad, staring wistful at Lexa from across the basket, the few feet separating them insurmountable.

Or so Lexa thinks until there’s a swoosh of air and suddenly Clarke’s lips are on hers, the distance erased. The kiss is desperate, devastating. Once recovered from her surprise, Lexa sinks into it to take the lead and kiss back _hard_. She captures the bow of Clarke’s lip, tugs on it with her lower lip, swallowing the soft gasp as she draws Clarke deeper into her mouth. The next whimper is shared when Clarke drags her tongue across, a plea for more.

As far as first kisses go, there’s nothing first about it. Every swipe or sweep or stroke is made as if it is the last. The final touch. Clarke’s hands are on her hips tightening in need as she brings Lexa closer, mouth soft and warm, sucking on her tongue with endmost urgency. With so much emotion, Clarke seems to be saying what she hasn’t been able to for weeks.

Lexa’s heart is in her ears. Still, she’s able to pick out the soft noises Clarke makes. Like this, breaths heavy, bodies pressed as one, the present and the future blur together. A hello and goodbye rolled into one.

“Sorry,” Clarke whispers when they pull apart. “I couldn’t leave without knowing if you tasted the same.”

“Do we?”

Clarke tips up for what Lexa thinks will be another kiss but pivots in the end to catch the corner of her mouth. The press is chaste and not long but its tenderness is somehow just as stirring.

“Yeah, you do,” she replies, licking her lip as if mentally comparing. “Down to the lip biting.” Lexa blushes. Tension broken, Clarke injects more needed levity, “Don’t tell her, okay?”

Lexa nods, laughing. But then can’t help her gaze and how badly she wants to dip down herself to steal another _final_ kiss, savouring the feel and warmth of Clarke. She pulls her lower lip under her teeth, biting back the want.

“I won’t.”

When they land, lips and hearts bruised, the light is changing again, dusk arriving in degrees of blues and purples.

“Can we watch the end of the sunset before you go?” Lexa asks once they disembark.

Clarke hesitates for a second likely out of concern for the late hour but then accepts when Lexa reassures that a taxi can take her home after dark. Removing shoes, they sit down next to each other, backs against the basket. Feet digging into the sand, knees pulled up with arms wrapped around them, chin rested on forearms and gazes set toward the horizon, their positions are mirrored copies. Lexa tucks her hands away under her knees to keep from reaching out.

“Stay safe, okay,” she says after quiet minutes, turning her head to lob the soft directive Clarke’s way. Lexa reaches for the rucksack which holds some of Clarke’s favourite sweets. “These are for you, if you get hungry. I don’t know if they have doughnuts where you’re going.”

Clarke smiles. It’s sad.

From the front pouch, Lexa pulls out an old tourist map of Polis on which Books & Hooks is marked as a recommended destination for visitors. She points to the starred listing before handing it over.

“Here, in case you ever come back. You can find your way to,” Lexa considers saying _me_ but course corrects, “more doughnuts.” Chuckling, she adds, “My bookstore is always open if you need another sugar high hit. Bring Lexa too.”

She wonders if Other Lexa is a Boston Cream or frosted with sprinkles kind of girl, or something more pedestrian like Lexa’s preferred honey glaze.

Clarke studies the map, tracing its lines with her pointer finger, mind on a different path than doughnut flavours. She sighs.

“Lexa, I’m a time traveller.” Clarke tells her, voice hushed in secret, eyes darting for eavesdroppers.

“I know,” Lexa says, amused by the first open acknowledgment of what has been a plain fact.

“ _Where I’m going_ , I don’t need roads,” Clarke paraphrases from Back to the Future. “So a roadmap won’t help.”

“Then how will our paths cross again?” Lexa jokes.

Rather than continue the banter, Clarke answers her rhetorical question with unexpected seriousness. “They can’t. It’s forbidden. They weren’t meant to in this one.”

“What do you mean? What one?”

“This universe,” Clarke replies, leaving the rest to Lexa to infer.

 _The multiverse_.

Lexa hadn’t considered the possible existence of alternate universes, that Clarke is not only from a different time but a paralleled one too. Possibly contemporaneous with Lexa’s. It makes way more sense than the math of Clarke dating a 185 year old future Lexa.

Clarke looks at her, apparent to be weighing further revelations with the way she gauges Lexa’s reaction.

“You and I are what is called a one time pairing,” she goes on to explain at Lexa’s silent nod to continue. “I think here in this universe, _time_ and _true_ are interchanged.” Lexa thinks she can’t mean soulmates. But apparently so when the sentence finishes, “Two people who meet once and will meet again and again, every time.”

“Doesn’t the multiverse and time travel complicate that?” Lexa asks, trying to wrap her head around three major concepts, which are highly disputable on their own as singularities let alone their simultaneity.

”Yes, it does. That’s why where— _when_ —I’m from,” Clarke reuses Lexa’s previous phrasing, “we try to limit encounters with our other halves from other universes because it’s not precisely known how an unfated meeting between alternates would disrupt the cosmic infrastructure.” Clarke takes Lexa’s hand, tracing the lifelines on her overturned palm. “On the slightest contact or overlap, there’s been unverified accounts of universes folding onto one another. Futurologists haven’t figured out what that means yet or the extent of impact, whether it’s a seismic shift or an insignificant one. It’s an inexact science that’s in its infancy.”

Lexa listens, absorbing. She understands better why so much has gone unspoken between them even when their connection is as clear as the baby blues closely watching her response; how overt knowledge of what they mean to each other would have consequences.

“Pilots are tasked to travel to different times and different universes to collect data, find out more about crossovers. Lex and I got separated on a mission a year ago, I’ve been looking for her ever since. I was really close to reaching the one portal which would have taken me back to where I left her. But then a high wind and severe thunderstorm had sent my balloon off course, dropped me here.”

“Lexa is a pilot too?”

“No, she’s a recorder. I get us to places and she writes up our discoveries.”

“A writer,” Lexa surmises, things clicking into place. She stares ahead, replaying all their past interactions.

Clarke smiles, nodding.

How many versions of her— _them_ —exists, Lexa wonders. A different thought pops up when Clarke’s most recent words catch up to her.

“What if you can’t find your way back to her? If you’re stranded.”

“There’s mechanisms in place to try and prevent that.” Clarke unpockets from her blue coat the photograph of young Lexa in front of Hooks. “Our version of a map. These are like notes to self left behind by our alternates in bookstores. If a pilot or recorder gets stuck in a time or place they shouldn’t be, they can look to historical figures for clues on how to get out.”

“Is that another me?”

“I think so. When I woke up after my crash, I found this page crumbled in my coat pocket. Maybe Lexa had put it there, I’m not sure. I came to your shop looking for more info about the photograph. Long story short, you and I weren’t supposed to meet. I didn’t know you’d be the shop owner. That was a shock.”

Lexa shakes her head. “I think I’ve got first and forever dibs on being shocked.”

Clarke laughs. Her eyes drop to Lexa’s lips. “Which is to also say, I shouldn’t have kissed you.”

“Oh.”

“I don’t regret it,” Clarke quickly clarifies, squeezing her hand. “I had to know.”

Lexa nods, gaze falling to her mouth too. She contemplates asking for one more kiss, for the unmapped road. But Clarke is not hers to ask for such things so the request stays behind pressed lips.

Seemingly on the same page about dos and donts, Clarke expands, “I never meant for this,” she waves a hand vaguely between them but the implication is unambiguous, “any of this, to happen. It wasn’t fair to you for me to play house mistaking you for her.”

“It’s ok. I willingly participated.”

“It wasn’t,” Clarke insists. “I should have found a different way.” She looks deeply into Lexa’s eyes, searching, then lets out a puff of air. “Just ... you’re both so incredibly similar, I didn’t know how to stay away. I am genuinely sorry.”

“Don’t be. I get it,” Lexa reassures. “Believe me, I do.” _Especially the not staying away part._

“Hopefully my Lexa will be as understanding when I explain why I kissed _not_ -her.”

Lexa laughs. “If she’s anything like me, then she’ll know that I didn’t exactly discourage you.” She tries for a smile, but the sadness in her voice dulls the effort. She breaks their eye contact, looking away. Playing with the sand between her toes, Lexa concedes, “She’s a lucky girl.”

“It’s not luck. Somewhere, your Clarke is searching for you too,” Clarke divulges. Although it’s meant to be comforting Lexa can’t help the thickness in her throat and the small burn behind her eyes that it won’t be _this_ Clarke. “And when you find each other, if _she_ is anything like me,” Clarke mimes, inadvertently syncing with her internal monologue, “she won’t be able to resist the pull.”

Lexa hopes so. Then maybe this ache in her chest will hurt that little less.

Clarke scoots forward away from the basket to lean back on her elbows, turning her head and tipping her chin up to the emerging stars. Lexa goes to do the same but chooses in the end to lie completely on her back, the fatigue of their walk catching up. Hands lacing behind her head to cradle it in open palms, she closes her eyes.

Ill-advised, she imagines a second kiss anyway. Imagines spending the night on the beach under the stars with Clarke, with no other agenda than to fall asleep to gentle waves and wake up to more kisses.

The sun sets and Lexa finds herself drifting off to the sound of lapping water and the final fading words,

“May we meet again.”

—

Lexa wakes up in the bookstore. She’s curled up on the sofa, a blanket draped on her body, a book lain overtop in her lap. Taking several moments to reorient, she blinks into the sunlight—a pinkish glow—that streams in through the window.

Dusk has been exchanged for dawn. The sea for her shop. She doesn’t recall the cab ride home.

_Was it all a dream?_

Lexa sits up, rubbing at her eyes. When they clear she zones in on the opened page of the book—the watercolour portrait of Clarke in front of the air balloon. The sight makes Lexa ache. It also makes her realise that the blanket on her is not actually a blanket. How she ended up with Clarke’s blue coat, she doesn’t know. Her hand smooths over the fibres, chest constricting at the thought of never seeing the wearer in person again.

Lexa sighs, not quite a dream after all. And not quite sure if she wants it to be.

A fortnight has passed since the day trip to the sea and every morning she wakes up wondering if she imagined everything. The waffle-making espresso machine is evidence she hadn’t.

She plays back that last night and the last two months before it, how her worldview has shifted in the span of eight weeks. The first time Clarke walked through her shop doors feels like a lifetime ago. Lexa wonders what a return to normal will mean after adopting a time-travelling, universe-dropping, doughnut-addicted air balloon pilot as a roommate with whom she’s shared a bed and one breath stealing kiss.

Does normal exist anymore when apparently there are multiple versions and timelines of them somewhere in the ether, together and in love, but just not yet in this one? Is it normal to miss someone who’s not hers to miss?

Lexa sighs again. It’s been two weeks without Clarke and she holds no fondness for normal.

Turning the page, for nothing better to do, she flips through the rest of the book on realising she didn’t get further than the section on sky squadrons the last time.

It isn’t nearly as shocking this go round to find an illustration of herself in a later chapter, dressed in warrior garb with what looks to be a partial tire as a shoulder guard. Sword in hand and a red cape flowing, _Commander Lexa_ crouches in ready position set to charge towards the viewer, an army of black-clothed youth behind her amid a dystopian scenery as the backdrop.

The determined look on her face gives her hope that the bleak future in that universe ends well for that Lexa.

Pondering about endings and what hers entails now that Clarke is no longer a part of it, Lexa is unprepared for the volume’s conclusion. She nearly drops the book on reaching the last page and reading the colophon. Underneath the printer’s emblem is information about authorship and credit rights.

_Written by Lexa Woods. Illustrated by Clarke Griffin-Woods._

The bell above the doorway rings at the same time Lexa catches the book from her slip. A face is obscured by a large bouquet of flowers.

“Hey, babe,” briskly greets her, followed by a drive-by kiss to the top of her head before the figure disappears to the back. Lexa isn’t given time to note the scent of sea salt when the voice calls out from behind the coffee bar where water can be heard running followed by the crinkle of paper and the sound of plates being moved. “Good nap? Sorry I kept you up late.”

Her breath hitches.

Lexa peers over the back of the sofa to stare at the back of a head of blonde. She shakes her own head in an effort to clear her vision, wondering if the dregs of sleep is making her see and hear impossible things. Like the scratchy voice that continues unaware of Lexa’s slipping hold of reality.

“Your latest chapter draft got me really excited for volume two and I wanted to get a head start on some sketches. What do you think of the colouring? I’m trying something new.”

Lexa _thinks_ she might be _a lot_ lost. But sure enough, on the coffee table in front of her is an array of watercolour drawings, mostly outlines but nonetheless the style is reminiscent of the bound art in her lap.

Lexa gapes—the dots struggling to connect—and looks up just in time to find a familiar, beaming smile revealed from behind a vase of flowers that’s placed down on the table. A plate of doughnuts follows suit next to it after the drawings are collected into a neater pile pushed out of the way.

“Hi, sleepyhead,” Clarke says, full of affectionate, setting her book aside and climbing onto Lexa’s lap. Lexa is too shocked to return a greeting. “Lincoln had a batch of fresh daisies come in early, really early,” she explains, presuming Lexa’s confusion is over the sudden appearance of May blooms. “He wanted to give us first cut before his rounds, knowing what today means.”

Lexa nods, speechless. No air to respond. Her loss of breath is compounded when Clarke cups her cheek, tucking a tangled strand of hair behind her ear, then closes the distance to draw Lexa into a long and soft good morning kiss. Lexa falls into it, like she did in the air balloon.

This kiss however isn’t tinged with the urgency of separation. It’s solid and steady and secured in an unquestioned togetherness. Clarke kisses her like this is the thousandth time that their lips have moved in sync, that a whimper is exchanged for a moan, that hands find their rightful place in hair and at the back of her neck.

Caught up in the routineness of it, Lexa can’t help but deepen the kiss. She changes angle and sweeps a hungry tongue into Clarke’s mouth which doesn’t shy from receiving and sucking on it.

Lexa kisses her like she wanted to, had they had more time by the sea. If this is still a part of some kind of elaborate dream then she will take full advantage.

When they part Lexa can feel if not see the wide smile against her skin as Clarke noses into her neck to wait out the return of missed breaths and skipped heartbeats.

“Well, happy anniversary to you, too,” Clarke pants heavily, chuckling. Something cold brushes against Lexa’s cheek as Clarke caresses her face.

Cupping her hand over Clarke’s, Lexa discovers it’s a gold band, identical to the ring found on her finger.

“What year is it?” She asks, hesitant to learn the date.

Clarke playfully slaps at Lexa’s chest.

“Not funny.”

“No, really. What year is it?”

“C’mon Lex, admit it. You forgot our anniversary again, didn’t you?”

Lexa shakes her head. If she was married to Clarke, she would remember it.

“Are we in 2020?”

Clarke pulls back to look at her, puzzled by the odd question but acquiesces anyway.

“Nope, that was five years ago when you turned my world upside down.”

_2025._

“2025?” Lexa repeats aloud, struggling not to sound incredulous at the jump cut in the calendar. Had she napped for that long?

“I can’t believe it either,” Clarke remarks. Drawing patterns on Lexa’s chest with the pad of her finger, she reminisces, “It feels like only yesterday you walked into my gallery.”

“Gallery?”

“What’s with the questions, Lex? Did you drop out of the sky today or something?” Clarke muses. _Definitely something_ , Lexa thinks. A distinct possibility Lexa did fall out of the air balloon and this alternate reality is the result of an extended concussion.

“Maybe,” Lexa replies, drawing the word out, mind working overtime to determine if truly she’s suffering from an undiagnosed head injury that’s wiped half a decade from her memory. “You own a gallery?”

“I did. You know, the struggling gallery that was making no money before you bought me out and took over with your books. I hated you at first and I was so mad but then we went from enemies to lovers like in one of your fictions because you turned out to be the nicest and prettiest book nerd to have swindled me. Bygones now that we co-own Arkadia’s most popular if not only gallery slash bookstore slash coffee shop.”

Lexa peers over Clarke’s head to reexamine her surroundings. Now that she has a closer look, the subtle differences stand out. Though the layout remains generally unchanged, the woodlands are paintings instead of pictures, there is more art hanging, including a dedicated wall of prints and originals for sale.

Much of the furniture stays the same except there are fewer bookcases and more colourful, eclectic upholstery.

All in, the retrofitted shop is recognisably hers, however, there is one significant difference. Etched on the storefront window glass is the shop name:

 _OFF THE HOOK  
_ _Art and books made in Arkadia_

Fuzzy words about universes folding onto one another push their way to the forefront of her memory.

“We’re in Arkadia?”

“Where else?” Clarke asks.

“What about Polis?”

“What _about_ Polis?”

The second significant change Lexa notices on Clarke’s parroting, following her gaze, is a golden retriever lying by the foot of the window, basking in the sun. Asleep, tail thumping contentedly. Or was asleep until Clarke calls out.

“Come on, Polis.”

A giant ball of fluff comes bounding toward them. Clarke laughs as he knocks her off Lexa’s lap and over onto the ground with the force of his happiness. Once righted, she rubs behind his ear, grinning widely at his enthusiastic licking. “Good boy.”

Lexa stares at the two heads of golden hair by her feet, jaw joining them on the floor before physically doing so when Clarke pulls her down to sit with their backs against the sofa bottom. Polis quickly turns his attention to Lexa. Slobbering all over her face.

“Hey, buddy, leave some for me,” Clarke chides, rescuing her from his excess affection. She pats him on the bum to behave. He whimpers and settles for Lexa’s lap, burrowing his head there and going back to sleep.

Instinctually, Lexa strokes his fur, smoothing the standing hair.

“Polis is a dog.”

Clarke laughs at her statement of the obvious.

“Yes, and I’m a painter,” Clarke says as if reciting facts along with Lexa. Her gaze flickers to the blue coat that turns out to be a blue painter’s frock. “You’re a writer,” her head cocks to the book in gesture, “and these are our favourite doughnuts freshly baked by Anya, which we have every weekend for breakfast,” she places a honey glazed one into Lexa’s hand, “and this is our home.” She waves nonchalantly to their surroundings before stuffing a chocolate ladyfinger-shaped doughnut into her mouth. Around a biteful, she summarises, “and for the last five years we’ve been incredibly happy.”

Lexa nods, taking a more measured bite from her doughnut. By Clarke’s account, nothing of this life is wanting.

“K, just checking.” Lexa pretends to joke. “Seeing if you’ve been paying attention.”

Clarke buys the pretense, her face brightens in laughter again before it comes closer, eyes wholly attentive to her lips. So full of love. She kisses Lexa once more. The taste of chocolate and sweetness and home melts away any remaining doubt about Lexa being in the right time and place.

Even if some things aren’t where she remembers them to be, there is little fault to be found in anything this warm. With Clarke’s tongue in her mouth and soft noises in her ear, this is an alternative arrangement Lexa can get used to.

“You passed the test, guess I’ll keep you.” Lexa whispers starry-eyed when the kiss ends, Clarke’s breath lightly hitting her as they stay connected by the touch of their foreheads.

Clarke boops her nose, grazing with the tip of hers before placing a soft peck on it.

“Happy to stick around.”

Other Clarke was right. When they find each other, the pull is instant. She feels a surge of love for this Clarke, as if she’s always been in her veins.

As if she’s always been Lexa’s to have and hold.

“I love you,” Lexa says. The words fall out easily, like it’s not the first utterance. Like it’s the norm. _Normal and real_. “In any time and every universe.”

“I love you, too.”

“Will you go on a first date with me?”

Clarke laughs. Lexa takes it as a yes.

They might be married and might own a dog and a bookstore—a perfect ending—but what Lexa looks forward to most in this universe is the beginning, dating her wife and falling in love all over again.

*******

**Author's Note:**

> Hope everyone is keeping safe and not drinking disinfectant. Stay well, friends. [@theproseofnight](https://theproseofnight.tumblr.com)


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